Speaking to Defensehere.com Prof. Dr. Mustafa Kibaroğlu Dean of MEF University Faculty of Economics, Administrative and Social Sciences briefly talks about NATO and its future.
Stating that NATO will likely survive the Ukrainian War Dr. Kibaroğlu states the following:
"We’ll the NATO allies will determine the future of NATO of course, but I believe with the given circumstances NATO will likely to survive even this major crisis. Back in 1949 NATO was established to protect the so called western lifestyle, which means open market economies, democratic regimes, and individual rights against threats perceived from outside of the NATO area.
So back in forty-nine and the fifties the only threat outside of the NATO territories was the Soviet Union therefore it was perceived to be established against the Soviet Union which is not a wrong assessment. But no where in the text of the NATO treaty, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, there is no, nowhere in the text is there any mention of any country as the enemy so therefore after the collapse of the Soviet Union, or the dissolution of the Soviet Union, NATO survived because it was not specifically and solely established against Soviet Union but against the threats from outside of the NATO territories. And when we go back to 1991, December ’91, when the Soviet Union vanished and NATO countries assessed the situation and have seen the number of threats coming from, posed by the international terrorism, some local conflicts in the Balkans, in the Caucuses, in the Middle East.
As where in other parts of the world with which some of the NATO allies such as Netherlands, France, and other have close historical links. Therefore the outright judgement that the opponent is not there so therefore NATO should finish its mission is not correct. NATO is the most powerful military organization in the history of mankind and therefore threats still perceived from outside of the NATO territories, such as international terrorism and some local conflicts which might escalate into major confrontation and NATO will likely to survive regardless of what happens during the and after the Ukrainian War."
